A NIGHTMARE ON EL... zzz... zzz... zzz...
Why pretend to be something I'm not?
The truth is, I've never seen the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Nor have I seen any of its many sequels. I also haven't seen the original FRIDAY THE 13TH or its sequels, or the two series' cross-pollination, FREDDY VS. JASON. I am almost 100% unversed in "slasher" cinema - and not because I'm particularly squeamish. (I once delivered triplets in an abattoir. No biggie.) Rather, by the time I was of age to be admitted to them, slasher movies had already been around long enough to enter the realm of self-parody. The creepy synthesizers and post-coital butchering that marked the genre were already Simpsons fodder, devoid of transgressive value in their own rite.
In anticipation of the new remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I considered doing my homework, really I did. Then I thought, a movie should be judged for what it is, especially one meant to deliver a gut-level thrill. Either a horror film is scary, or it's simply not. So it was with a clear mind that I entered the new NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET... And, it was with a clear mind that I left A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, inasmuch as it ended a half hour ago, and I can barely remember a thing that happened in it. Maybe that's the intended effect of these films: they're cinematic fast food. Still, for my very first slasher flick, this NIGHTMARE failed to deliver even one nice jolt. I can only imagine how dull it will be for someone better acquainted with the sub-genre... Then again, if you've seen thirty-nine NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET's and still yearn to see another one, you and I have very little in common.
The story of this film, and the other thirty-nine (OK, eight) NIGHTMARE films, goes something like this: teenagers start having nightmares that kill them in their sleep, teenagers realize they're all having the same nightmare and it's caused by the ghost of a burn-victim-out-for-revenge named Freddy Krueger, teenagers try to stay awake but fail, and are forced to fight Freddy in their dreams, and at least one teenager walks away... forrr nowww. So, what sets this new NIGHTMARE apart? Why it's Freddy himself. In a departure from the 1984 film, Freddy's no longer just a child murderer; his original sin, what led to his unceremonious flambé-ing, is actually child molestation. This apparently was a story point of the first NIGHTMARE, one that was abandoned by studio executives in the wake of the sensational McMartin trial.
Also different about Freddy in this new film is that for the first time in the franchise, he's not played by Robert Englund, but by Jackie Earle Haley... Jackie's well-hidden here under tons of makeup, but he's not hidden enough to avoid notice by Steven Spielblog. Jackie, a former child star, was far below the radar until his Oscar-nominated performance in Todd Field's LITTLE CHILDREN, where he played Ronnie McGorvey... another child molester. Does the man have no fear of typecasting? Between McGorvey and Krueger, Jackie's characters have destroyed almost as many children's lives as the Catholic church. Almost.
Jackie doesn't do much to elevate the modern monster, his Freddy is intense, and, uh... intense, but he might as well be Olivier behind latex compared to the rest of the cast. Sure, part of the fun of slasher films is watching young actors pay the price for their dreams of Hollywood stardom, but not one of these kids' on-screens mutilations struck me as terrifying in the least. The device is a simple one: the teenaged characters, in their small town reality, close their eyes if only for an instant - and as soon as they do, the lighting on their face changes. The camera pulls out, and we realize, oh shit, they're in a dream, yo!
The problem is, as soon as those eyelids flutter, it's obvious Freddy Krueger's en route, if he's not standing behind our teen heroes already. The audience is nothing if not ready for him, so the thrills, if the film scores any off you, are cheap: Freddy shows up one beat after you expect him to, or maybe one beat before. I'm no aficionado. But if spending ninety minutes knowing more or less exactly what's about to happen is your idea of fun, again, we have very little in common.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is produced by Michael Bay, whose hobby it is to print money from re-imagining yutzy films for a whole new generation of yutzes, and it's directed by Sam Bayer, a brilliant music video maker who, it turns out, doesn't seem to know ass from ear when it comes to putting together a full-length feature.
Why pretend to be something you're not, Sam?
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